Inventory and new records of benthic Amphipods from macrophytes and fine sand communities of the Bizerte lagoon (Tunisia, SW Mediterranean Sea) Marwa Khammassi, Jérôme Jourde, Wahiba Zaabar, Sarra Laabidi, Pierre-Guy Sauriau, Mohamed Sghaier Achouri To cite this version: Marwa Khammassi, Jérôme Jourde, Wahiba Zaabar, Sarra Laabidi, Pierre-Guy Sauriau, et al.. In- ventory and new records of benthic Amphipods from macrophytes and fine sand communities of the Bizerte lagoon (Tunisia, SW Mediterranean Sea). Marine Biodiversity Records, Cambridge University Press, 2019, 12 (24), 10.1186/s41200-019-0182-5. hal-02398718 HAL Id: hal-02398718 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02398718 Submitted on 7 Jan 2021 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution| 4.0 International License Khammassi et al. Marine Biodiversity Records (2019) 12:24 https://doi.org/10.1186/s41200-019-0182-5 MARINE RECORD Open Access Inventory and new records of benthic amphipods from macrophytes and fine sand communities of the Bizerte lagoon (Tunisia, SW Mediterranean Sea) Marwa Khammassi1, Jérôme Jourde2* , Wahiba Zaabar1, Sarra Laabidi1, Pierre-Guy Sauriau2 and Mohamed Sghaier Achouri1 Abstract Shallow water benthic communities from the Bizerte lagoon (northern Tunisia) were investigated at 33 stations sampled in April and July of 2016 and 2017. A total of 18 amphipod species were recorded among which two new species were recorded: one for Tunisian coasts (Jassa marmorata) and a second one for the Mediterranean Sea (Serejohyale spinidactylus). In addition, and compared to previous studies, nine amphipod species were collected for the first time in this lagoon. Amphipod assemblages were numerically dominated by the families Melitidae (28%), Caprellidae (14.5%) and Ampithoidae (11.7%). Three species: Cymadusa filosa, Dexamine spinosa and Elasmopus rapax were numerically dominant. According to their biogeography, most of the recorded amphipod species (11–18) showed an Atlantic–Mediterranean distribution, whereas four were cosmopolitan and three lessepsian Indo-Pacific migrants, but no species were Mediterranean endemic. Specimens of both Jassa marmorata and Serejohyale spinidactylus are illustrated and described. Keywords: Amphipoda, Serejohyale spinidactylus, Jassa marmorata, Diversity, Biogeography, Wetlands, Mediterranean Introduction play an important role in aquatic food webs by processing The Order Amphipoda is a large group of crustaceans, detritus, and constitute a link in the transfer of energy to shrimp–like in form, that inhabit various environments, higher trophic levels (Rogers et al. 2010). mainly aquatic, from fully marine to fresh water including The Bizerte lagoon is a shallow water Mediterranean hypogean habitats (Sket 1999). In the marine realm, they ecosystem located in northeast Tunisia (Fig. 1). It plays a represent one of the most important components of the major hydrological transition role between the Mediter- macrozoobenthic communities in terms of diversity and ranean Sea and the Ichkeul Lake (Afli et al. 2008), abundance (Baldo et al. 2001). Thus, Mediterranean known to be an important area of nursery and feeding amphipod communities show a high species diversity with grounds for marine, estuarine and freshwater species more than 452 recorded species (Ruffo 1998) inhabiting a (Shaiek et al. 2015). Few studies have hitherto focused large variety of habitats from coastal, including estuarine on the benthic communities of the Bizerte lagoon (e.g. and brackish conditions, to the abyssal level. Amphipods Afli et al. 2009), and only scarce and fragmented data reach a high level of diversity on plant substrata as sea- dealing with amphipods have been reported by Zaouali grass and algae (Bellan-Santini 1999; Mc Cain 1968), and (1980) (three species) and Fezzani et al. (2001) (five spe- are often associated with other organisms such as bivalves, cies). More recently, new investigations on amphipod bryozoans, hydrozoans, and annelids. Furthermore, they communities (Zaabar et al. 2015) reported the presence of 10 amphipod species at the Menzel Jemil station * Correspondence: [email protected] (St27) (Fig. 1). 2 UMR 7266 LIENSs CNRS/La Rochelle Université, 2 rue Olympe de Gouges, The present study was implemented in order to con- 17000 La Rochelle, France Full list of author information is available at the end of the article tribute to the knowledge on Tunisian lagoon benthic © The Author(s). 2019 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. Khammassi et al. Marine Biodiversity Records (2019) 12:24 Page 2 of 10 Fig. 1 Map of the Bizerte lagoon with location of sampling stations macrofauna and focused on amphipod data collected Djellouli 1988; Essid and Aissa 2002 for details). The la- from 33 stations in the Bizerte lagoon. Results are com- goon has been exploited for fishing activities and shell- pared to previous amphipod inventories in order to fish farming of mussels Mytilus galloprovincialis highlight new records, autochthonous versus allochthon- Lamarck, 1819 and oysters Magallana gigas (Thunberg, ous status, and biogeographic affinities. 1793) for several decades (Beji 2000). Materials and methods Study area Sampling The Bizerte lagoon, the third largest coastal lagoon in Sampling was carried out at 33 stations (Fig. 1) in April Tunisia, is located in northeast Tunisia (37°08′–37°17′ and July during two consecutive years (2016 and 2017). N/ 9°46′–9°55′E) (Fig. 1) and covers an area of 130 km2 At each station, three random replicates were placed be- with an average depth of 7 m. This semi-enclosed eco- tween 0 and 11 m in macroalgae, seagrass meadows or system is connected with the Mediterranean Sea through sediment. Samples were collected using a metal quadrat the Navigation Channel (6 km long, 7 m wide and 12 m of 25 × 25 cm and a Van Veen grab (400 cm2) [see deep), and with the Ichkeul Lake in the west through the Additional file 1]. The collected macrophytes and sedi- Tinja Channel (ANPE 1990; Ouakad 2007). In addition, ment were washed and sieved through a 5-mm and then the lagoon receives freshwater input from 18 different a 1-mm mesh size sieve. The collected fauna was pre- non-permanent streams (Zmerli Triki et al. 2014). Sedi- served in a 70% ethanol-marine water solution. In the la- ments mainly consist of muddy sand, being covered in boratory, amphipods were identified to species level and most areas with seagrass meadows of Cymodocea nodosa counted. Specimens were dissected using a stereomicro- (Ucria) Ascherson, 1870 and Zostera noltei Hornemann, scope (LEICA MS5) and appendages were observed 1832, sciaphile algae Codium bursa (Olivi) C. Agardh, through a compound microscope (OLYMPUS BH–2). 1817 and the photophilic algae Dictyota dichotoma The identification of families, genera and species was (Hudson) J.V. Lamouroux, 1809, Ellisolandia elongata performed using the identifications keys of Chevreux (J.Ellis & Solander) K.R. Hind & G.W. Saunders, 2013, and Fage (1925) and Ruffo (1982, 1989, 1993, and 1998). Padina pavonica (Linnaeus) Thivy in W.R. Taylor, 1960, However, Serejohyale spinidactylus (Chevreux, 1926) Ulva lactuca Linnaeus, 1753, Cystoseira compressa previously described by Chevreux (1926) as Hyale spini- (Esper) Gerloff & Nizamuddin, 1975 and Gracilaria dactyla was identified following Serejo (2001) and bursa-pastoris (S.G. Gmelin) P.C. Silva, 1952 (see Krapp–Schickel et al. (2011), whereas Caprella scaura Khammassi et al. Marine Biodiversity Records (2019) 12:24 Page 3 of 10 Templeton, 1836 was identified using Krapp-Schickel lagoon during April and July of 2016 and 2017. Melitidae et al. (2006). was the most species-rich family with 5 species. In terms of total abundance, the family Melitidae showed the high- Nomenclature est value (1700 individuals, 28%), followed by Caprellidae All the species were checked for the present valid no- (882 individuals, 14.5%) and Ampithoidae (708 individuals, menclature according to the World Amphipoda Data- 11.7%). Eight species displayed relative abundance values base (Horton et al. 2019), which is part of the World higher than 5% (Table 1): Cymadusa filosa Savigny, 1816 Register of Marine Species (WoRMS Editorial Board was the most abundant species (11.7%), followed by Dexa- 2019), except for the macroalgae species, for which a mine spinosa (Montagu, 1813) (11.1%) and Elasmopus cross-validation of species names and authorities was rapax Costa, 1853 (11%) and they were largely distributed based